Many people use social networking services to connect with other people over a computer network, such as the internet, for personal or business purposes. For example, two people who meet in person at an event may use a social networking service to continue a dating relationship, a friendship, a business relationship, or the like. Some people may also use a social networking service to begin a personal or business relationship with another user of the social networking service, even if they have not yet met in person.
Many users of a social networking service have public user profiles, which allow other users to contact them, or send messages, to begin an online relationship. However, users with public user profiles have an increased risk of receiving mean, crude, or otherwise undesirable messages, because any member of the general public may communicate with them. Other users of a social networking service may have private user profiles, which block communication, except from members of an existing social network of affiliated users. Although a private user profile may block undesirable messages, it may also prevent a user from receiving desirable communication from new acquaintances.
Additionally, it may be difficult to find a user profile for a new acquaintance on a social networking service. Depending on the number of users, a user profile search may return a large number of public user profiles, and new acquaintances may not know enough about each other to effectively narrow the search. Also, a user profile search may exclude private user profiles from the search results.